"If I could tell you! If I could tell you!"
"Tell me what? I am sure there is nothing for you to tell which you need blush to speak."
"No, no. Nothing, nothing."
"Then why should he not know? Why should he not have known? Cecilia, you will tell him to-night before he goes to his rest?"
"No,—no. Not to-night. It is impossible. I must wait till that woman has gone."
"Miss Altifiorla knows it?"
"Oh, yes!"
"She knows, too, that he does not know it?" This question Cecilia answered only by some sign. "I fancied that it might be so. I thought that there was something between you which had been kept from him. Why, why have you been,—shall I say so foolish?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes; foolish;—oh, yes! But it has been only that. There is nothing, nothing that is not known to all the world. The marvel is that he should not have known it. It was in all the newspapers. But he never thinks of trifles such as that."
"But why did you keep it from him?"